She wasn’t dramatic about it.

She looked frightened, and tired, and certain, the way a person looks when they’ve decided to do a thing they know they shouldn’t.

“Before you go in there,” she said, keeping her voice under the corridor noise, “I need you to just stand here a second and listen.

I was in that room taking vitals twenty minutes ago, and I heard something I can’t un-hear, and I couldn’t live with letting you walk in blind.” She glanced down the hall, then back at me.

“I could lose my job for this.